3 thoughts on “Individualism?”

I find this interesting. I have to say that I consider myself something of an expert on the experience of existentialism. My opinion is that it is at once freeing and nihilistic.

Existentialism is about the power to create – on a dime if necessary. The freedom to create is obtained by getting one’s mind to the place where he can move things around in it without emotional attachment. Everything is “empty and meaningless.” What this, in effect, amounts to is that each day a man pushes the Sisyphean rock up the hill only to have it roll all the way to the bottom while he sleeps. Each morning there is nothing to do but create anew. To the extent one lives in the existential worldview, he literally wears himself out.

Existentialism says nothing about purpose and building something. Further, it creates a vacuum in a person’s life which can then be filled by the dictator who claims his right to determine the purpose for everyone in the name of and for the benefit of the collective. The individual’s life is essentially empty and meaningless and the pervasive quality of one’s life is resignation.

Existentialists are known for being slackers. So long as they imbibe the tenets of existentialism, I don’t think it is possible to bring forth a long term, lasting self-motivation which can withstand someone’s criticism – such as, “why
don’t you create it this way rather than that?” Without an ego seeking values in order to live, a person is powerless to combat that question with reference to the world. Since life is empty and meaningless and can be created anew in an instant, why not the other way?

(You can see why existentialists are the perfect fodder for a dictator. They have an existential need for a dictator – that person who will provide purpose and meaning for one’s life.)

The only way out of this dilemma I’ve found is rational egoism which is dependent upon on having a purpose, the fundamental one being to live one’s life the best he is able. That is the organizer for one’s actions and it is reference to a purpose to attain a value in reality that one can say – because of the nature of my values and the nature of reality it is necessary to be this way.